


Going Nowhere and Everywhere

by thatsparrow



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: (pure pines family fluff), Family Bonding, Gen, Others to be added - Freeform, PPFF, Road Trips
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-18
Updated: 2016-08-21
Packaged: 2018-08-09 14:09:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7804810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatsparrow/pseuds/thatsparrow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It had started the way everything starts in Gravity Falls — that is, sudden and unexpected and usually with some amount of screaming.</p><p>This time, the screaming came from Mabel, the sound high-pitched in her ear-shattering enthusiasm as she considered the barely road-worthy RV parked once more outside the Mystery Shack.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bowerbird](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bowerbird/gifts).



“Wait, wait, no! Oh, son of a _bitch_.“

“Kid, _language_.”

“Sorry, Grunkle Stan.” Dipper called out as he absently adjusted his hat, the tips of his fingers and sides of his hands stained black by smudged graphite and ink from a series of hastily penned sketches. He looked up, past the plaid and patchwork fabric of the overtired curtains to the pillars of redwoods running in endless series just outside the window. But whatever shadow he’d seen skimming through the forest was long gone, and he had nothing but a blurry and ambiguous outline on the page to show for it.

“See something interesting, Dipper?”

Behind him came the clipped and formal tones of Ford, six-fingered hands splayed out on the table as he leaned forward to peer out the glass. With a short, frustrated sigh of defeat, Dipper dropped his journal on the table, pulling the brim of his hat down low to avoid seeing Ford’s examination of the ill-defined shadow sketched between the parallel lines of the trees.

“It’s, ah…hm…”

“It’s a _nothing_ , Grunkle Ford.” Dipper sighed from under his hat, pulling the journal off the table and letting the pages fall shut over his efforts. “Whatever it was—if it even _was_ something strange—it’s gone now.”

“Perhaps.” Ford offered, sliding into the booth on the other side of the table. “Or perhaps it’s merely a mystery left for another day. The world beyond Gravity Falls is a remarkable and decidedly unusual place — one I’d never hope to uncover fully on my first venture.” He gave Dipper a small smile, shoulders shrugging slightly beneath the fabric of his trench coat. “Besides, even _I_ wouldn’t expect to compile a full profile of a creature just from looking out the window of a _moving car_. There’ll be plenty of time for research along the way, Dipper, and I have no doubt we will _both_ fill up our journals before the trip is done. In the meantime? Perhaps it’d be best if we learned to relax a little—“

“That’s what I’ve been _saying_!” Mabel’s voice rang out clearly from her perch at the front of the RV, the turquoise sleeves of her sweater folded across the top of the headrest as she peered back at Dipper and Ford. “ _Honestly_ , Dipper — road trips aren’t supposed to be _stressful_ , they’re supposed to be _fun_!” Her eyes narrowed as she took in the two of them, expressions maybe a little sheepish as their fingers hovered reflexively near their respective journals — Dipper’s resting on his lap under the table, Ford’s tucked neatly into a side pocket of his trench. “So both of you had better _enjoy yourselves_ — alright? If I end up with a scrapbook of the Pines Family Road Trip that features one twin and one Grunkle moping in the RV the whole time, I will be a _very unhappy camper_.” Mabel fixed the pair of them with her Most Serious expression before, apparently satisfied by the contrite looks she saw, she dropped back down in her seat, shoes propped up on the dash.

“Attagirl!” Stan crowed, beaming with pride as he considered his niece. “You hear that, Sixer? You too, kid. Better listen to the lady and get your noses out of the damn books.”

“Grunkle Stan, _language_.”

“Bite me, kid.”

 

* * *

 

 

It had started the way everything starts in Gravity Falls — that is, sudden and unexpected and usually with some amount of screaming.

This time, the screaming came from Mabel, the sound high-pitched in her ear-shattering enthusiasm as she considered the _barely_ road-worthy RV parked once more outside the Mystery Shack.

“Grunkle Stan, Grunkle Ford!” She chirped, bouncing up and down on her toes as she looked back at the two waiting on the porch. “Is that what I think it is? _Does this mean what I think it does_?”

“Does it mean that I’m now suffering from tinnitus?” Dipper asked, tone only slightly teasing as Mabel _oohed_ over the paint-scratched exterior, gas station stickers plastered over innumerable dings littering the bumper. “Because that seems like a definite possibility.”

“Small price to pay for summer fun, Dipper.” Mabel offered, the metallic grin of her braces glinting in the sun as she looked back at him before returning her eager expression to Stan and Ford. “ _So_? Come on Grunkles — don’t keep a girl waiting. Does it?”

“You betcha, Mabel!” Stan returned her wide smile with an easy grin of his own, one hand resting on the porch railing as he tilted his head towards the RV. “This summer, Ford and I are treating you kids on an honest-to-god Pines Family Road Trip — with all the sites, s’mores, and weirdness that is _sure_ to entail.”

“So it _does_ mean what I think it does!”

As she took off towards the porch to wrap both her Grunkles in the kind of rib-cracking hug that is a Mabel Pines speciality, Dipper toed the grass in front of him, hands dug deep into the seams of his vest pockets as he looked over the vehicle with some reluctance. In fairness, his hesitancy didn’t have much to do with the state of the RV itself—though there was _plenty_ there to merit a little uncertainty—no, this was about something else.

See, he’d be lying if he said there wasn’t some part of him that had been looking forward to a _quiet_ summer in Gravity Falls — or, you know, as ‘quiet’ as the town typically went. He’d be lying if he said he hadn’t daydreamed of evenings spent in the attic and afternoons wandering the woods he now knew better than the birthmark on his forehead. He’d be lying if he pretended he hadn’t thought about Ducktective marathons in the den and straightening knick-knacks in the gift shop while Wendy flipped through a magazine behind the register.

He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t still shaken from Weirdmageddon. And he’d also be lying if he said he didn’t occasionally wake up in the middle of the night, skin damp against a sheet wrapped constrictor-like around his limbs, heart still racing from the memory of Bill showing up in his dream.

He wanted the abnormal that had become familiar. He wanted routine.

More than that, he needed to know that Bill hadn’t _broken_ him — that he could still be brave. 

As Dipper looked up from the RV back to the porch, he could just catch a glimpse of Mabel lecturing Ford on the finer points of making the proper road trip mixtape before they disappeared into the house, the door swinging shut on the _swish_ of her hair and the bottom of Ford’s coat. A little further down, Stan still stood on the porch, elbows resting on the rail as he leaned forward to consider Dipper, eyes seeming a little narrowed behind the large frames of his glasses. And if there was maybe a little curiosity or concern in his expression as he considered his nephew, it wasn’t something Dipper felt he needed to address. Instead, he turned away from the Shack back to the RV, pulling his hands out of his pockets to readjust the straps on his backpack as Soos pulled up in a golf cart packed with supplies.

And if Dipper waited to look back at the porch until he’d heard the door swing shut a second time, well, that could only be attributed to coincidence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alright, so I'm _sure_ plenty of folk have already written fics featuring a Pines Family Road Trip, but I was feeling inspired last night and decided one more in the archive wouldn't hurt.
> 
> besides, both my friend and myself have been craving some family bonding and solid fluff between the Pines -- so this is like 50% for me and 50% for her.
> 
> hope you enjoy it!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> to clarify the timing of the chapter: the first half of the chapter takes place after they've already started their trip, while the second half of the chapter is a flashback to events that occurred before they left GF

Maybe an hour and a half after leaving Gravity Falls, Stan pulled off the narrow highway into a small town tucked into the hollow of the woods, just enough space carved out from the trees to make room for a quiet two-block stretch of downtown. Past the edges of picket fences and unpaved parking lots, the trunks of redwoods butted up against the backyards of the handful of residential homes that dotted the streets, battered pick-up trucks parked in the towering shadows of the trees. 

“We’re stopping already, Grunkle Stan?” Mabel asked from the passenger seat, drumming her fingers against the knees of her neon tights as she peered out the bug-plastered windshield. “Are you taking us to another roadside attraction?” She turned to look at him, eyes narrowed, one hand already reaching for the handle of her grappling hook sticking out the side of her backpack. “Are we committing more vandalism?”

Stan let out a laugh, shaking his head as he eased the RV into the parking lot alongside the local dinner. “‘Fraid not — at least, not with Sixer in the car.”

“Stanley—“

“Relax, Ford, only joking.” Stan said, the words somewhat undercut by the subtle wink he gave Mabel, her grin buried in the sleeves of her sweater. “Nah, we’re only about halfway to our first destination, but Ford tends to forget about things like food when he’s ankle-deep in his paranormal-nerd shit—”

“ _Stanley_ —“

“ _Language_ , Grunkle Stan.”

“Yeah, yeah — god forbid I tarnish your unsullied ears.” Stan said, the words tossed towards the two in the back along with a lazy wave of his hand. “Anyway, Soos packed some food in one of the coolers, but I figure we’d best stop for lunch before those two,” he hiked a thumb over his shoulder at Dipper and Ford, “get so distracted by the supernatural wonders of the world that they’re eaten by spider-people or something equally tragic.”

“Spider-people, Stanley?”

“ _It happens_.”

Pausing for a moment to give Ford a watchful eye in the rearview mirror—two six-fingered hands held up in mock surrender—Stan pulled the keys from the ignition and eased himself out of the driver’s seat with no small amount of limbs creaking.

“You never did tell me, Grunkle Ford,” Dipper began as he and Mabel followed Stan down the RV steps and into the half-empty lot bordering the diner, “where _is_ our first stop, exactly?”

“Glad you asked, Dipper!” Ford said, eyes lighting up behind his glasses as he pulled an annotated Oregon guidebook from the inner-pocket of his coat. “Today, we’re headed to Crater Lake — location of breathtakingly crystal-clear water, countless scenic vistas, _and_ —I’m hoping—home of the legendary Beisht Kione.”

“Is that Irish? Welsh?” Dipper asked, flipping through Ford’s highlighted notes in the guide book as he followed Mabel through the front door of Aunt Edna’s Diner, a tired-looking waitress waving them over to a corner booth below a weak AC unit.

“Manx, actually.” Ford corrected as the four of them slid into their seats, speaking in the sort of affected tone born of receiving 12 Ph.Ds, a small smile tugging at his scholarly expression at Dipper’s relentless curiosity. “But we can discuss the specifics once we’re closer to our destination.”

Across the table, Mabel stacked sugar packets in the shape of a pyramid as Stan perused his own menu, one arm slung over the back of the vinyl-seating of the booth. 

“Speaking of, Grunkle Stan,” Mabel asked, brows drawn together as she focused intently on the delicate process of balancing two Splenda packets together, “what’s on our agenda while these two investigate the lake? I’m prematurely vetoing if it’s fishing. Is it fishing?”

Stan shrugged, the asymmetrical lines of his scarred knuckles and improperly healed fingers idly flipping through the laminated pages of the menu. “Not sure yet, kid.” He looked up, catching her eye and giving her a casual shrug and a sly grin.

“I mean, I’m not saying vandalism. But I’m also not… _not_ saying vandalism.”

 

* * *

 

Stan had expected that this trip would entail its fair share of complications—hell, knowing Sixer and the kids, complications were a goddamn _inevitability_ —but there was a naive and wishful part of him that had hoped it’d be a few days before he saw the first sign of trouble.

Instead, Stan Pines had found himself hitting his first speed bump before the RV had even made it out of the driveway

“Careful with those bags, Soos! Ford’ll have my ass if any of his precious instruments are disturbed and while I am _more_ than capable of handling him, he is…uncharacteristically muscular after thirty years of dicking around in alternate dimensions and that’s really a fight I’d rather skip altogether.”

Up on the roof of the RV, Stan watched while Soos carefully negotiated around the half-dozen crates and duffles loaded up so far for the trip, an elaborate net of blue plastic tarps and overworked bungee cords somehow keeping everything in place. 

Moments like these—directly underneath the near-blinding noon sun with his fingers cupped over his forehead as a makeshift visor—Stan kicked himself _again_ for not giving Mr. Mystery a hat with a fucking brim.

Absently scratching the back of his neck, preoccupied with the amount of things that still needed to fit on the roof of the RV—one of these days, he needed to sit down with Sixer and have a _serious_ chat about the kinds of things you pack for a road trip—Stan didn’t notice Dipper standing behind him until he heard a somewhat-hesitant voice say, “hey, Grunkle Stan, do you have a minute?”

“What do you need, kid?” Stan asked over his shoulder, hoisting another duffel up to the roof of the RV where Soos waited with another bungee cord in hand. “Shouldn’t you and Mabel be packing?” He turned to face Dipper, eyebrows raised and a slightly questioning look on as face as he considered his nephew. At Dipper’s continued silence, Stan frowned.

“Soos — why don’t you take five.” He hollered up to the roof.

“Sure thing, Mr. Pines.” 

After waiting to hear the sound of Soos’ precarious descent down the side of the RV, Stan looked back at Dipper, shoulders shrugging under the jacket of his Mr. Mystery suit as he eyed the uncertainty blatantly sketched over Dipper’s face. “Something on your mind, kid?”

“I guess? I mean, it’s nothing important — nothing _too_ important, that is. Or—“

“Kid, _out with it_.”

“Sorry, Grunkle Stan.” Dipper said, still retaining that uneasy edge that Stan didn’t like seeing on him. “I was just wondering how long we’re supposed to be gone. Not the whole summer, right?”

He’d tried posing the question casually, tried throwing the right inflection into his words to sound easygoing and unconcerned, but Stan Pines had earned his living learning how to read people—learning how to scam them, technically, but all part and parcel of the same shyster package—and it didn’t take much to pick up on the anxiety practically _radiating_ off the kid. 

And maybe connecting with Dipper didn’t happen as easily as it did with Mabel, but _fuck_ whoever thought that meant Stan was immune to seeing him unhappy.

“Unless Sixer’s got some plans up the sleeves of that turtleneck that I don’t know about, no, shouldn’t be the whole summer. I’d say at least a couple weeks — maybe a month.” Stan decided to go for a little levity, an easy smile and light nudge. “Still leaves you and Mabel plenty of time to put in hours at the Shack.”

But Dipper didn’t seem to have heard his last words, still too wrapped up in whatever the hell it was that kept him so preoccupied these days.

He wished that stress wouldn’t stick to the kid like static cling and he hated that it did, but even after struggling through the same problem with his own brother, Stan still didn’t know what the _fuck_ he was supposed to do about it.

“Okay…” Dipper mused, mouth drawn slightly. “And where exactly did you say we were headed?”

Spreading his arms out wide, striking the kind of Mr. Mystery pose that belonged in front of gullible tourists, Stan offered Dipper a broad grin. “Nowhere and everywhere, kid — the best kind of road trip.”

“Is that your way of saying we’re aimlessly driving around Oregon for a few weeks?”

Usually, he’d give the kid an affectionate cuff on the shoulder and tell him to cut the shit and not be smart. But usually, there’d be that distracted spark in Dipper’s eye that Stan recognized so well—the same one he’d grown up looking into behind Ford’s glasses—and Stan felt too perturbed at its absence to fall into any of his familiar routines.

Reassuring wasn’t a part he played very often, but he still knew the lines well as anything else.

“Nah, nah, kid, not to worry,” Stan said, dropping his arms and losing the salesman tone for something more sincere, “Sixer’s got the whole trip planned out to a T. The way I understand it, there are a couple sites in the state—maybe some a little farther north—with specific supernatural nonsense that he wants to investigate. And according to the laws of physics or astrophysics or pseudo-physics or whatever the hell he’s getting his next Ph.D in, some of them are best studied during the summer.”

“So it’s a research trip?” Dipper asked, and dammit if that didn’t bring a little life back to the tired lines of his face.

But not in the way it would have normally—not in the way it should have—and all Stan could think was that no thirteen-year-old should look so weary.

“Listen, kid — can I level with you?”

Dipper looked confused, but nodded.

Taking a minute to throw a quick glance over his shoulder, Stan dropped his voice slightly. “Between you and me, I’m not sure Ford’s being entirely honest about the timing of this trip.” He gave a somewhat hapless shrug, “take the word of someone who’s spent the bulk of his life being less than honest himself.”

“You lost me, Grunkle Stan.” Dipper said, his look of confusion persisting.

But confused was better than exhausted, and Stan would take what he could get.

“I love my brother and—even if I don’t always admit it—I worry about him. And right now? _Fuck,_ I’m worried about him. The two of us had a hell of a time sailing the world, but he’s changed since we got back to Gravity Falls — spending most of his time down in the lab or out in the woods, keeping to himself, like he’s making a point of trying to be alone.

“He won’t talk to me and I know better than to try, but I see the way he still jumps when he thinks he catches something out of the corner of his eye. Truthfully, I don’t think he ever properly recovered from what happened last summer.”

And _fuck_ if that didn’t hit a live-wire nerve in the kid.

Maybe Stan hadn’t made any headway with his own sibling—he might be old but he sure as _shit_ wasn’t deaf and it’d been _weeks_ of hearing Ford’s footsteps wandering the shack in the middle of the night—but that didn’t mean he couldn’t make an effort with Dipper. If his own twin wasn’t willing to listen, maybe Dipper would.

“We both know he did everything he could to set things right—practically killed himself in the process—but there’s some residual guilt or fear that he hasn’t quite worked through and that he needs to figure out on his own. And I think—especially having you two kids around, especially after how close you two came to getting hurt last summer—he’s got the best chance of moving forward outside of Gravity Falls.

“I get it, that an extended road trip in a rust bucket of an RV probably wasn’t what you envisioned for your summer — but I’m hoping that you’ll be willing to put up with it for Ford. So, what do you say?” Stan paused, waiting for some reaction or response from Dipper, wondering if he’d managed to hit the right words to make a difference.

“Yeah, Grunkle Stan,” Dipper said, a small smile slowly returning to his face — _thank fuck_. “I understand.” Still maintaining his smile, Dipper gave Stan a nod, taking a few steps back in the direction of the Mystery Shack.

“Besides,” he called over his shoulder, one sneaker on the porch step, “it should be fun, right?”

“Kid, it’s a Pines Family Road Trip,” Stan threw back, not bothering to hide his own grin at the sight of an honest-to-god _smile_ on Dipper’s face. “Fun is a goddamn guarantee.”


End file.
